


Make-Up

by monchy



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 04:39:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monchy/pseuds/monchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Glam rock was all about the make-up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make-Up

Glam rock was all about the make-up. Brian – or had it been Maxwell? – himself had said it: rock n’ roll is a prostitute, it needs to be tossed up, performed. And that was the exact word, wasn’t it? Performed. The thing was, Brian had stopped performing a long time ago, maybe he hadn’t even been doing that at the beginning. Maxwell was supposed to be pure make up, a blurry cape of bright colors that would help Brian escape once he was out of stage. But with Brian, Curt had noticed, it was all about the make-up.  
  
Curt liked make up, sure he did. So he only wore that bit of kohl under his eyes and some nail polish, but he loved the thousands of colors Brian’s face could take under the products. One day his skin would look like pure gold, another white as snow, and then darker, reddish, extravagant, out of this world. At some point, tough, Brian had forgotten that there had to be something under the colors, a scratch of real skin to paint.  
  
The day Curt had stopped living with Brian and had started trailing after Maxwell, he had ran away from the circus the man he had once loved had created around himself. It had hurt, mostly because the Brian he had left hadn’t been the Brian he had loved but a mere piece of skin dressed as Brian, someone else working his way inside him, painting him, coloring him… erasing him.  
  
At least, he had look good back then. Curt couldn’t quite say the same about Tommy Stone. If Maxwell Demon had been a bad idea this dude dressed in awfully shiny white clothing was definitely a disaster. Curt just didn’t know what Brian had been thinking about, or actually, what Shannon had been thinking about. Then again, it was the eighties, and Curt had gotten stuck back in the seventies, when the leather pants and the no shirt policy rocked everybody's socks. Now he was just old fashioned. He didn’t care. Maybe, after all, he didn’t like make up all that much.  
  
This kid, this journalist, he has seen him before. He remembers a night full of alcohol, drugs and pain, a farewell to glam rock. He remembers Mandy and Brian. She had looked good on the outside, he had too; they had both been wearing masks: make up. This kid… – Anthony , Arthur, Artie? It started with an A, he was sure of that – he had looked… well, he had looked like Brian. Blue hair, exaggerated make up, big earrings, shiny clothes. Yes, Brian had probably looked much like him when he was younger… So Curt had slept with him. And it had been good and bad at the same time, it had been a lie, a mask, make up, just more make up to cover the painful screams he had exchanged for moans.  
  
He looks good, Curt thinks. And it’s true, he does. As Curt comes out of the bar, wondering if leaving the pin inside his beer has been such a good idea, he takes a good look at him: tall, broad back, silky hair, beautiful eyes, wide open smile. Curt sighs. He hasn’t seen anyone quite like him in a while. He looks great, amazing and, before he even realizes it, Curt has stopped outside the bar to wait for him.  
  
When the kid – because, God, Curt feels old – comes out of the bar, Curt lights a cigarette, the orange flame the only illumination of the dark street. Arthur, he thinks it’s Arthur at least, looks at him, half surprised, half amused and, while he takes a drag from his cigarette, Curt nods at him.  
  
“You look better without all that make up.”  
  
And Arthur smiles. For real.


End file.
